


Shipwrecked

by Azile_Teacup



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-27 22:56:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2709746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azile_Teacup/pseuds/Azile_Teacup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt 'shipwrecked' for my bingo card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shipwrecked

**Author's Note:**

> First time I've done anything like this, it's very exciting for me.  
> feedback is appreciated, including con-crit. Feel free to point out what you don't like about the fill, just keep in mind that I may pay no heed whatsoever :) I might change it, though, if I think you're right/

Eames strolls across the deck, hands in his pockets, creating the picture of an old fashioned English gentleman. He’s wearing cream chinos and deck shoes, an open jacket and a shirt even thought it’s more the weather for shorts and a t-shirt. He slumps down onto a deck lounger, spotting Arthur, and sighs, letting his eyes close against the sun. Arthur just keeps on reading his book, ignoring Eames. 

“Why are we here, again?” Eames asks. 

“I’m here because I wanted to get away from Thomas, because he’s a pain in the arse. You’re here because you’re making friends with the man you’re forging for us.”

“Right.”

“Now shut up, I’m reading.”

“Right.”

Eames yawns and stretches, hoping to entice Arthur away from his book, but when it doesn’t work he gets up and strolls away again, heading for the swimming pool, which is where Lucas Stern, said mark, currently is. Eames changes quickly and sits on the side of the pool, looking out at the ocean, not watching Stern. 

“Hullo old man,” Stern says, swimming up, “the band last night was quite something, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” Eames says, pretending distraction. 

Stern always talks like he thinks he’s Bertie Wooster. 

“Jolly good show,” Stern says, heaving himself out, “I say, it’s fabulous weather, what?”

Easy to imitate, but difficult to get underneath. Eames directs his attention to the caricature at his side and wonders what is underneath, if anything. He has to find out, that’s the point of all this.

“Up for a game of water polo?” Eames asks, already standing and looking around for other likely looking players. 

Stern is, of course. Anything sporty and posh-sounding enough and he’s up for it. It’s not even hard to find other people to join in, and soon they’re splashing around and Eames forgets he’s bored and throws himself into the throng, letting himself enjoy it. 

Eames has just got hold of the ball in one arm and Stern in the other (he’s not sure of the rules, but he’s almost certain headlocks aren’t allowed), and is about to dunk the one and pass the other, when there’s a low rumble and a solid sounding ‘clunk’, and the forward momentum, so far seemingly-inexorable, stops. They drift forwards for a while, engine cut, but then they slow to an almost stand still. 

Eames can’t chart the slow descent of the ship, can’t remember much after that first creeping stop. He knows that he hits his head at some point, knows that he gets Stern out of the pool and to Arthur’s care before… something. He wakes up, though, still by the sea and not back in the warehouse, so he can’t have died. He rolls over and pushes himself up to stand, keeping his eyes shut. 

“Eames-!”

Eames recognises Arthur’s voice, recognises the exasperated warning. He starts to turn in that direction to question one about the other, but before he can so much as twitch, his body decides that it isn’t going to stand. He crumples back down. 

“Idiot,” Arthur says, closer, hands helping to straighten Eames into a comfortable position, “you did something to yourself. Stern said that you fell, but he was vague, as far as I can tell you whacked into the rail and broke a couple of ribs and fell and damaged your knee and I think you might have sprained your ankle, too.”

“Stern?”

“Has gone to look for coconuts.”

Eames finally opens his eyes to try and get a better grasp on what Arthur can mean by that, and is met by blazing sun. He bites his lip as the light sends sharp pokers of pain lancing through him, but he finds Arthur and meets his eyes. 

“Coconuts? Where are we?”

“That is a very good question. I have no idea. You know, getting Stern onto an ‘old boat’ is all very well, but next time let’s make sure he doesn’t have a Titanic obsession, hmm? We hit an iceberg.”

“But… we were in the Med!”

“Yes, we were. Anyway, after you shoved Stern my way and promptly fainted, Stern fainted too. Things went a bit fuzzy, then we were all here, lying on the beach.”

“What?”

“I haven’t a clue. I think it must have something to do with the way Stern thinks things happen. He seems to have gaps.”

“No, what did you tell Stern?”

“Oh. Just that I rescued the two of you, because you happened to be closest and I’m pretty much just a dolphin.”

“Really?”

“I said ‘government man’ rather than dolphin.”

“Ah. No, it’s not Stern’s gaps. I’ve come across it before. It’s because of the way dreams move. When the subject loses consciousness it depends how deeply immersed they are, but sometimes you all fall deeper, sometimes you all wake up, and sometimes… well. Here we are.”

Arthur looks up and laughs, actually laughs. Eames hasn’t heard Arthur laugh yet on this job, due to the infamous ‘Thomas’ and something to do with Cobb calling the night before Arthur called them together. 

“He really found coconuts. Jesus. Okay, how do you want to play this? Up to you, you must be in pain.”

“Not so much,” Eames says, frowning, “very strange, actually. Only my head hurts, really.”

“Maybe it’s because your mind hasn’t caught up with the sudden change of situation and hasn’t realis-“

Eames, who had looked down his body to try and work out what his injuries were, had noticed the bruising and swelling and his mind had clicked- his breathing shortened, ribs throbbing and shifting, his knee sent waves of pain up into his stomach, his ankle set up a low complaint, and his shoulder, where it has been dislocated several times, started aching. He cuts Arthur’s explanation off with a cry of surprise. 

“Well, your mind caught up,” Arthur says, “I can kick you out, Eames. We can try again another time.”

“Can’t,” Eames says, “This is Stern’s, isn’t it? This is his mind. There must be more. Keep me here.”

“Eames.”

“I’ve had worse, Arthur. I’ve had far worse without the promise of it ending.”

Arthur’s face goes dark and stormy and Eames grins at the fierce, protective surge that caused that. Arthur puts a hand on Eames’ chest and gives him a very intense look, then nods and gets up abruptly. 

“Stern, isn’t it?” Arthur says, “oh, you found coconuts. Good. Mr Henley-Smyth should probably have a drink, can you do that while I go forage for something to use to patch him up?”

“I found some rather useful bits of metal from the wreck and a stone, so I can make a hole in one of these,” Stern says, sounding delighted. 

Eames groans. He hates coconut milk, it’s far too sweet and reminds him of things he’d rather forget. He’ll just have to add ‘being force fed it on a desert island’ to the list entitled ‘memories about coconut milk I’d rather forget’. 

Stern is attentive and kind, but he talks all the time Arthur’s gone, telling Eames about his scout training, his first aid badges, his first aid status at work, his mother’s praise, the way he saved a kitten, on and on about his achievements. Eames tries to focus, tries to pay attention and play his part, but he fades out before Arthur returns and stares vaguely at the ocean, body exhausted, pain shivering through him. 

“Well old man, this is a fix,” Stern is saying, next time Eames zones in, “I’d better gather some wood for a fire, get some attention.”

Eames is pretty certain he’s going to throw up. He rolls carefully onto his side, holding his ribs, and breathes through his nose. His stomach gives just as Arthur returns, which means that Arthur’s strong, warm hands press his ribs as they shift, hold his head, soothe. Eames sweats and retches, bile hitting the sand he’s lying in. 

“Shit. Eames, this is stupid. Stern’s gone to find fire wood. How the hell is he going to light a fire? Although, this is a very weird island.”

“The isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs.”

“No, it’s not. But it is full of things like shrapnel perfect for opening coconuts. There are nails lying about, Eames. I found a first aid kit for heaven’s sake. And a vegetable patch!”

Eames laughs at Arthur’s total disregard for his snobbish quote, but it tapers off into a sharp gasp of pain when Arthur half lifts, half drags him away from the pool of vomit and starts binding his ribs, ankle and knee. 

“I did notice the Shakespeare,” Arthur mutters, “I just chose to ignore it. Stern’s back.”

“I found matches! Must have washed ashore from the boat. Might be a bit damp, but I reckon they’ll light.”

“Oh God,” Eames says, laughing, holding onto his ribs. 

“I did warn you,” Arthur whispers, “let’s do this, get it over with. Stern!”

“Yes?”

“Light that fire. I need you to stay with Mr. Henley-Smythe, talk to him, keep him awake. I have to go check that there are no inhabitants or dangerous animals about.”

Arthur gets up and leaves, striding away. Eames reaches out, fingers snagging briefly in Arthur’s jacket before he’s gone. Eames looks at his empty fingers. 

“Um, old man?” Stern says, looking uncertain.

“Right. Fire, mate,” Eames says, wincing when his slightly butchered, native accent creeps through the posh. That hasn’t happened in a very, very long time. 

He watches Stern struggle with the fire and he’s a hundred percent certain that neither the matches nor the fire should light. It’s really very funny, the kind of things Stern thinks are realistic in a situation like this. Granted, Eames has never been shipwrecked, per say, so he doesn’t have first hand experience.

“That man said you were to stay awake.”

Eames blinks, a little worried that he hadn’t noticed his attention slipping and his eyes closing. Stern’s crouching in front of him, though, so he must have missed a bit of time. There’s also warmth from the fire, as if it’s a radiator. 

“Ever been camping, Luciano?” Eames asks, remembering, this time, to use the nickname Stern liked last night. 

“No.”

“No? Never? Not once?”

“I camped in my back garden once, but my mother…” Stern sits next to Eames and stares at the fire. 

“Had a mother once,” Eames mumbles, forgetting himself, “sh’was beautiful. Had a smile you’d give anything to see.”

“What happened to her?”

“Huh?” Eames becomes aware of Stern again and shakes himself, “oh, I suppose she’s still knocking about somewhere.”

“You don’t see your mother?”

Stern seems more shocked by that idea than he has been by the entire crash, the ice-berg in the Med, the random coconuts, any of it. Eames laughs, dredging up his stand-by grin, then lets it drop at just the right moment and blurts out the only backstory he can remember. 

“Not since my step-father. He doesn’t approve of me, you see. I defied him and went to Cambridge instead of Oxford, and I happen to drink sugar in my tea. You know what these people are like, eh?”

Eames wonders what Stern would make of his real history. He wonders what Arthur would make of his real story. Not that it matters, he barely remembers it himself these days. 

“I suspect there was rather more to it than that. I know the sort of thing; my mother married someone else, too. She spends rather more time with him than me, these days. Used to be that she was my best friend, my confidant.”

Eames marks ‘mother’ in his mental tally of what ingredients make up Stern. His head and ribs are starting to set up serious complaint, though, and he loses focus again, concentrating on breathing, wishing he’d accepted Arthur’s offer to shoot him. He floats for a while, disconnected from everything except the pain, and when he becomes aware again, Stern is talking about a brother who died before his third birthday. 

“He was so small. We had such a tiny coffin,” Stern says. 

Eames adds ‘grief’ and sighs. Lucas seems like a genuine, naïve, innocent guy and while Eames has forged better men for less, he feels uneasy about taking this man’s identity from him. It’s so disparate, so strange, and there seems to be so little of it. 

“What did you want to do, when you were younger? What did you dream?” Eames asks, letting his eyes fade a little, go glassy, slurring a little. 

“I dreamed of being a fireman.”

Stern talks, pretty much non-stop. Once Eames makes it clear that he’s feverish and out of it, Stern gets going and doesn’t filter himself. He talks about how much it means to him that his step-father got him a job in the company, how much he loves having dinner with a woman from the floor below him but how he can’t get up the courage to ask her out, partly because he’s not sure if he doesn’t, rather, perhaps, like the man who interns for him rather more. Eames listens, storing away the details, until the pain is too much. He grits his teeth for a while, but he can’t help the cry that breaks from him when he accidentally shifts and his ribs _move_.

“Shit, shit,” Stern says, losing Bertie Wooster entirely and turning into a wide eyed teenager, accent softening to have an edge of West Country in it. 

“I’m good,” Eames says, panting for breath, sure for a moment that he’s punctured a lung. 

He hasn’t. He manages to catch his breath and looks at Stern’s anxious face, gathering the energy to reassure. 

“Luciano, I’m good,” he says. 

He can feel exhaustion wash over him, though, and his eyes flutter shut. When he opens them, Arthur’s bent over him, grinning. 

“You scared the shit out of Stern,” Arthur says, “almost literally. He went to… relieve himself.”

“TMI,” Eames mutters, shivering.

“You’re not doing great,” Arthur says, face falling into a frown of concern, hand pressing divinely to Eames’ forehead. 

“You have lovely hands,” Eames says, “did you know I had a mother?”

“I had surmised as much. Though there have been times I suspected devilish involvement and some kind of pact.”

“No. I had one of those Mums, you know? Made cakes, had a job, made my lunch, did my laundry.”

“She spoilt you rotten, you mean?”

“No. I was small.”

“And when you weren’t?”

“When I wasn’t?”

“When you weren’t small.”

“Oh. When I wasn’t small, I didn’t have a mother.”

“You need to stop talking before you tell me something you’ll regret.”

“Won’t regret it. I trust you. Tell you my name, mm?”

“Alright.”

“My name… is…”

Arthur smiles fondly at him. 

“Eames!” Eames says, and laughs, “seriously, s’my name.”

“You changed it. I know, I found the record. Was the previous one any more real?”

“Nah. Changed that, too. Long, long trail of names. Can’t trace it, not even you.”

“No, I can’t. Though, for the record, I never tried. Do you have what you need on Stern?”

“Could do with more observation of his mannerisms.”

“Just pretend to be Bertie Wooster and you’ll sail through.”

“You thought that, too? Woodehouse?”

Arthur shakes his head and laughs, biting his lip, eyes bright. 

“Yeah. Snap.”

He lines his palm up with Eames’, in a strange kind of high five. 

“Bertie Wooster,” Eames says, “So who’s Jeeves?”

“I am,” Arthur says, linking their fingers, eyes focussed on their hands. Eames looks, too, “I want to end this, okay?”

“Um, end what?” Eames says. 

“The dream, you numpty. Honestly, can’t follow anything, can you.”

“My knee’s throbbing, my ribs…”

“Yeah, got you. Okay? We’re done?”

Eames just shuts his eyes. Arthur’s hands soothe him to sleep, so gently, the way Arthur is only very occasionally, when he lets his barriers down. Prickly little thing. 

Eames wakes in the warehouse, head throbbing, body still sore from the remembered ache. He yawns and rolls over, removing his IV. 

“You got Stern?” he asks, waiting for Arthur’s affirmative answer before letting himself relax. 

“You can have twenty minutes, Eames,” Arthur says, “then he’ll wake. Get some rest. Where’s Thomas?”

“He went to get coffee and cake and a burger and chips.”

Eames is on his feet, gun to the head of the unexpected person, before he’s fully understood that there’s someone else in the room talking. He shakes himself, blinking into Dom’s shocked face. Eames puts the safety on, but keeps the muzzle at Dom’s temple.

“Cobb,” Eames growls, teeth gritted.

“Hello, Mr Eames,” Cobb says, “I wasn’t aware you could move that fast.”

Arthur snorts, and Eames sends him a glare, warning him not under any circumstances to bring up Helsinki. 

“Moved faster than that to catch Mal, in Iceland,” Arthur says. 

“Christ, Arthur,” Eames says, “it was Finland. Why do you find it so hard to differentiate?”

“Mal?” Cobb asks, eyes going big and dewy, “my Mal?”

“Great. Thanks, Arthur. That was a nice little piece of privacy, and now- poof!”

“Oops,” Arthur says. 

It sounds more like ‘oh dear me did I step in it? What a huge, huge ACCIDENT that was, lol’. But Arthur would never lower himself to the level of ‘lol’. 

“The level of lol,” Eames says, dropping the gun and tucking it back in the holster he’s wearing, “that is a strange phrase, even to think.”

“It’s surrounded by strange things, being, as it is, below the level of pond scum,” Arthur says, able to follow along more or less. Cobb just stares at them. 

“So, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” Eames asks. 

“Ah. That,” Arthur says.

“Is this what’s been eating you?” Eames asks, “never mind, I can guess enough and I don’t want to know the rest. Do you need me to deal with Stern?”

“No.”

“Good. I’m having the afternoon off. My shoulder hurts.”

Eames goes over to Arthur and, momentarily forgetting they have an audience, offers his sore shoulder. Arthur rolls his eyes but pulls away his shirt to peer at the unblemished skin, then he rubs over the muscles briefly.

“Get a massage or something. And sleep it off,” Arthur says, taking away his lovely hands and turning to Cobb, face closing off into anger. 

Eames leaves him to it. Cobb does this, sometimes; tries to check up on Arthur, to make sure he’s hiring the right people and things. It’s kind of sweet, Eames thinks. Arthur thinks it’s humiliating and belittling, no matter how many times Eames tries to explain that Cobb just misses him. Eames does go to get a massage. And he does sleep. 

When he wakes, Arthur’s there, leaning into Eames’ back and lying as if asleep. He’s awake, though, Eames can tell from his breathing and the feel of his body. Eames hums and turns, smiling when Arthur’s arms shift to hold him. 

“Hello,” Eames says, “all sorted?”

“Yeah. Wish you hadn’t been hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“Hate it when you’re in pain like that, Emmy.”

“…Emmy?”

“Thought I’d try it. No?”

“….”

“Right. You called Lucas ‘Luciano’, I thought maybe you liked nicknames.”

“He likes nicknames. I go by ‘Eames’, a single name with few plausible derivatives. Do the maths.”

“Math.”

“Bugger that, you wanker. Do you call it ‘mathmatic’? No. It’s ‘mathematics’.”

“Okay. So you don’t like nicknames.”

“Used to go by The Ram, for a bit, when I was boxing. They called me Johnny in the service, no idea why, I could never work it out. Got called Silver, in the specials. Mercs called me Hawk, or Tommo. My Mum called me Oliver.”

“Was that your name?”

“Nah. Like, Oliver Twist. Cus I wriggled a lot, like. Twisting. She never read the book.”

“Your posh is slipping.”

“Keeps doin’ it, today, doesn’ matter.”

“I could call you Ollie?” 

“If you like, I can stand that. You want a nickname?”

“You seem a pro at them.”

“Hmm. Okay… I assume ‘Arty’ is off the table?”

Arthur doesn’t even deign to reply. Eames thinks for a while, absently letting his fingers rest on the scar behind Arthur’s ear. Suddenly, he thinks of it, and smiles. 

“Fury,” he says.

“Oh,” Arthur says, “am I angry?”

“No. Fury, you fight like fury, like the Greek Furies, like you have everything on the line and everyone to prove yourself to, everyone to beat. I love the way you fight.”

“Don’t be so pathetic.”

“Sorry, Fury.”

“Fine, Ollie.”

Eames laughs, moving his fingers up into Arthur’s hair. 

“Feeling better?” Eames asks. 

“Yes. As long as you’re not in pain?”

“Nope, not a tiddly bit.”

“Then, I feel much better.”

“Good, because my afternoon nap means I am far from tired right now. Any ideas?”

“Ideas are your thing. I have no imagination.”

“Anti-gravity drop? I’m sure you can think of something.”

Arthur does, in the end, think of many ‘somethings’.


End file.
